


how thick about us root

by queerwatson



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1584650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerwatson/pseuds/queerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though Sherlock had never been the sort to believe in a higher power, she constantly wished there was someone in particular she could blame for the four letter word she had ‘tattooed’ over her ribs. Obviously she had disdain for the idea of soulmates as a whole, but much of that was the fault of the fact that the first word her supposed soulmate was apparently meant to say to her was, “<i>What?</i>”</p>
            </blockquote>





	how thick about us root

**Author's Note:**

> so i realize that the my most recent fic before this one was also a femlock soulmate au. i'm just really gay, and a sucker for soulmate aus, i guess. title credit to edna st. vincent millay.

Though Sherlock had never been the sort to believe in a higher power, she constantly wished there was someone in particular she could blame for the four letter word she had ‘tattooed’ over her ribs. Obviously she had disdain for the idea of soulmates as a whole, but much of that was the fault of the fact that the first word her supposed soulmate was apparently meant to say to her was, “ _What_?”

The response was so common, so tedious and annoying the she imagined she wouldn’t have liked it even without the connotations of belonging to her match - but still, still every time she met someone and deduced them and they responded with that ridiculous one word question, she had to fight the urge to flinch.

After the initial few times that the word had traitorously caused a swell of hope, she had started to flinch. That reaction had faded with time, though, and her ability to keep her reaction in check had gotten better.

It had reached the point, by the time she met Jane Watson, that automatically she liked someone far less when that was their initial response - so of course she had felt drawn to Jane. Of course they were expected to move in together - Jane responded to Sherlock’s asking her if she had been in Afghanistan or Iraq with a quiet, charged, “ _What?_ ”

Sherlock scowled down at her work, and ignored it. She flew through all the discussion that could have been horribly tedious and excused herself fairly quickly. Better to spend less time feeling the ill-timed return of the flicker of hope trapped in her chest, thinking of the expression on Jane Watson’s face as she’d asked that ridiculous, awful question.

Jane came to Baker Street the next day and for whatever strange reason, Sherlock very much wanted this small contradictory woman to like her. The fact that Jane didn’t have any confidence in the work on her blog was only a small setback, and Sherlock took her on a case and even just the initial work at the crime scene went really quite splendidly.

Then, they went to dinner, and of course Jane started talking about soulmates. Sherlock really should have known better.

“So do you have a match, then?”

“Not really my area,” Sherlock replied curtly - and if she caught a flash of something like pain in Jane’s eye just out of her direct line of sight, it was only because of some twinge in her injured shoulder, surely. It was always easier to just let people think she was one of those born without a tattoo. Saved telling them the backstory that only earned piteous looks and attempted comfort.

“So you’re unattached, then. Just like me. That’s fine. That’s good.”

Sherlock opened her mouth to say more, but closed it again and changed the subject to the cab that had been sitting on the street for such a long time instead. Then there was the thrilling chase, the drug bust at 221b, going for a ride with the cabbie, and the cabbie getting shot.

Jane Watson having shot the cabbie, shockingly enough.

Maybe not so shockingly, really, but something unfurled in Sherlock’s chest and felt like it almost burned right over her ribs and really she should have told Jane Watson that she could live on her own after all, but she didn’t. She didn’t even come close. Instead she asked her to dinner, and so for the second time that night, the two of them went to a restaurant and sat a little close, only this time Sherlock ate and so did Jane, and they talked and laughed and enjoyed the feeling of the adrenaline still coursing through their veins.

Sherlock told her a story from an old case, and Jane laughed in all the right places and then told a story from her time in the army.

Unfortunately, after their very late dinner they had to part ways - Jane still hadn’t moved in just yet, after all.

She did however, move in the next day. Sherlock was half watching her carry in boxes, observing the strength of her arms despite her injury, and half helping her with the heavier items - when Jane pushed up her sleeves.

And there it was. The end of a phrase, but a phrase that ended with ‘ _Iraq?_ ’ right on Jane’s right forearm. Sherlock stopped, and may have stopped breathing, and Jane’s pleasant demeanor quickly faded into something nervous and unhappy.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I meant to not...” Sherlock watched as she frantically pushed down her sleeves. “I was planning to just. Not have you see that. I guess with us living together it would have come out eventually, I just... I thought maybe I’d tell you after we’d gotten to know each other better and you knew I wasn’t going to- Sorry.”

Barely having listened to her words, Sherlock reached out and pushed her sleeve up even further, looking down at the words on Jane’s arm with her brow furrowed. “It’s not a very common question.”

“No, but...” And there was the pain in her eyes again, Sherlock couldn’t write it off this time, and she felt awful for having tried to the first time, suddenly. “People get mismatched. It happens.” Jane blinked a couple of times and her expression had evened out again. “Hey, look, I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me. If you think it’ll be a problem I’ll move out. Honestly it’s sort of good, right? Now I know who you are I can start looking around for other people. It’s better than waiting around not knowing.”

With that, Sherlock came to the point where she had to make a decision, and her words got caught in her throat. Jane Watson was lovely. The one person she’d ever met who said ‘What?’ and still had Sherlock wanting her to be the right one - and now... Now she very well might have been. The opportunity stood before her.

Instead, she shook her head and pushed Jane’s sleeve back down. “You don’t have to move out, it’s all right.”

How could she explain her own reluctance? She could already tell she was going to be fond of Jane, in spite of her own best efforts not to be. It just... didn’t seem right. Jane had already written her off, and seemed determined to press forward. She was probably better off that way.

The issue, though, with attempting to hide something visible as a tattoo from the woman who was not only your flatmate, but for all intents and purposes, also your doctor, was that it was something very close to impossible.

It took a few cases - Jane dated, and became single again. Sherlock sulked. Then, however, came the case where when chasing after the woman who had stolen the very important treaty from the office of Petra Phelps - Petra’s sister in-law to be in fact - Sherlock was grazed with a knife, below her ribs, just inches below the word on her skin.

After she got home and the case had been solved, Jane caught her taking off her jacket and noted the blood that had seeped through her shirt.

“It’s fine, Jane, really, I had pressure on it in the cab on the way home-“

“You’ll say it’s fine even if it isn’t. I know better than to think you’re modest, you’re just kicking up a fuss, so just go sit down in the bathroom and I’ll clean it and make sure it doesn’t need stitches.”

Of course, her equally stubborn flatmate would not take no for an answer, and so Sherlock did as she was told, pale and unhappy as she sat in the bathroom on the edge of the tub - and not because of the blood loss.

Jane came in with her medical bag and knelt in front of Sherlock, starting to unbutton her shirt before she started to carefully pull it back.

“Jane-”

She hummed, but didn’t look up, and when she finally peeled the shirt away from the wound and then sat back to examine the area around it, she froze.

“I was going to tell you,” Sherlock said in a small voice. There was guilt churning in her stomach, and Jane’s face was still unreadable.

It only took a moment for Jane to go back into action, and Sherlock wasn’t sure what that meant. Silence reigned as Jane cleaned the cut, then just put a bandage over it - it wasn’t that deep after all. When she was putting things back in her bag, Jane finally spoke. She didn’t look up at Sherlock.

“Pretty common phrase, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ve heard it a lot. Must’ve been hard.”

“It’s never been part of a matching set before.”

That stopped Jane, and she was still on her knees on the floor, bent over her medical bag. “Why didn’t you say something? When you saw mine? That was months ago, Sherlock, and you - you interrupted my date, you went to all that trouble when all you had to do was show me.”

“I didn’t really plan to interrupt your date. I just. Did. I decided without even really thinking about it.”

Jane didn’t respond, and Sherlock sighed and started to button up her shirt as she spoke again. “I had convinced you that I didn’t have a match. That you were mismatched. It didn’t seem right to just pull my shirt up and say ‘Surprise!’ Especially when even now some part of me is still worried that you’re meant to meet some other person who just overhears you talking about your army days and asks you ‘Afghanistan or Iraq?’ Why should it be me?”

Finally Jane closed her bag and stood up, and Sherlock stayed where she was, looking up at her. “I understand that you probably got sick of even the sight of yours because you heard it so often and even if they weren’t the first words someone said to you, for a while you still thought maybe, maybe, and then it wasn’t. You talked yourself out of ever finding your match. But the fact of the matter is even with yours being so common, it would be almost impossible for us to have a matching pair and not be a match.” Jane sighed, paused, and licked her lips. “Frankly, Sherlock, I don’t even care anymore if we’re meant to be a match or not.”

Oh. Sherlock stood up, quickly, and started to leave the bathroom, looking down at the floor, but Jane grabbed her wrist.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Taking a moment to regain her composure, Sherlock turned back around and finally made eye contact properly.

Jane dropped her wrist, but moved closer and gently placed a hand on her shoulder, and then her cheek. “I just meant that it doesn’t matter to me if we are or we aren’t - you interrupted my date, and she broke up with me anyways because she said I spent too much time with you. We live together and work together and there are days when I almost want to throttle you, but I still really can’t get enough of you. I want to know everything there is to know about you, even the things you don’t know well enough to tell me - I want to spend as much time with you as I can. If you weren’t interested in this kind of stuff, I wasn’t going to push you, that wouldn’t be good for anyone - but I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”

Exhaling quietly with relief, Sherlock wrapped her fingers around Jane’s wrist and turned her face towards Jane’s palm, just fractionally. “It’s not. I’ve even - I’ve tried before, and it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. But I never had any reason to attempt to repeat the experience until I met you. Then I wanted to, even if in the very beginning I wasn’t really sure why.”

“So we agree that it doesn’t really matter to either of us if we were meant to be a match or not - we are, in all the ways that matter,” Jane said, placing her free hand at Sherlock’s waist.

Sherlock nodded, and leaned down, tilting her head forward so her forehead nudged gently against Jane’s. “Yes. I can agree to that.”

With a short nod, Jane pressed forward and her lips met Sherlock’s in a sweet, chaste kiss. Sherlock kissed back before she pulled away, and then the two of them stood there for a moment, in the bathroom, just looking contentedly at each other.

Then Jane giggled, and Sherlock was helpless against joining her. Jane’s laughter was one of Sherlock’s favorite things, really.

“We’re ridiculous,” Jane muttered, opening her eyes and grinning up at Sherlock. Then her gaze narrowed a little. “You’re ridiculous.”

Sherlock took Jane’s hand. “I can’t deny it.” Her grin went a bit crooked, and Jane just looked at her fondly.

“All right, all right, I can’t stay angry with you, I’m too pleased. On the other hand, you’ve lost blood even if the cut turned out to be shallow, you haven’t slept in a good while, and I haven’t gotten enough sleep while this case was on. It’s time for the both of us to go to bed.”

Jane started out of the room, Sherlock stayed close, still holding onto her hand. “Do you want to share mine for the night? It’s much more comfortable.”

Though she hesitated, Jane still turned back around, looked at Sherlock for a long moment and then nodded. “Yes, all right. I’d like to change into my pyjamas, though. You should too.”

Trying not to be giddy, Sherlock went into her room and did change into her pyjamas. When Jane returned, though, she had her top still pulled up, looking at the word over her ribs.

In Jane’s short sleeve t-shirt, her tattoo was exposed as well.

They laid down together, Jane curling up behind Sherlock, and her right arm went right over Sherlock’s ribs. Sherlock shivered, pleasantly.

“That’s sort of lovely, isn’t it?” Jane said quietly, and Sherlock couldn’t help herself. She turned back over, disturbing the moment they’d fallen into, and pressed her lips against Jane’s again.

She had parted her lips first, and Jane had followed suit, her tongue sliding into Sherlock’s mouth with a hum. Sherlock, then, had swiped her tongue over Jane’s lips to see what she could taste - the salt of skin, mostly, with a hint of Jane’s toothpaste. They kissed deeply, and for so long that Sherlock could feel her lips getting a bit swollen.

As they both drifted closer to sleep, the kisses shortened and grew more chaste, then stopped entirely. Jane shifted and laid on her back, and Sherlock curled up, half on top of her, almost clinging to her.

Jane put a hand in her hair.

Driven by a silly urge, Sherlock pressed her lips to the skin just below Jane’s throat, over her breastbone, smirked, and whispered, “ _Afghanistan or Iraq_?”

The only response, however, was a quiet, sleepy, snuffling sound.


End file.
